6 Years After the Treaty of Coruscant
The Mercenary without Hope
Sitting alone at the Cantina's bar, a disheveled outlaw curled her fingers slowly around her 5th drink of the night. Like many of those living in the tumultuous period following the Treaty of Coruscant, the woman was wearing armor, or at least was wearing what once had been armor. Pieces of brown Beskar'gam hung loosely around the woman's torso, bearing many grey chips out of their brown paint. Her left forearm was bare, revealing a scar intersected at intervals with others, indicative of a hand done suture. Taking a sip from her drink, woman silently cried. In her left hand was a necklace, a memento attached to a chain, far too small for her to be able to wear herself. The memento itself was a round from an old slugthrower, a single tungsten tetrahedron that in combat was intended to circumvent the energy shields that have grown so popular amongst Troopers and other Bounty Hunters.
"Happy 15th.." the 36-year-old woman spoke quietly to herself.
Raising her hand clumsily to ask for another drink, Alexieux Surik was completely unaware of the rest of the Cantina. It didn't help that she only had one eye, the other having been burnt out all those years ago on Alderaan. She never got a cybernetic replacement, too content with drowning herself in her guilt to fill the socket. Now, she kept the wound covered by dirty rag that slid horizontally across her forehead, plastering her black hair to her skull.
Unnoticed by the Alex, a figure, a man in his 50s, entered the bar. He had spent the last month looking for a colleague, one who had thrown incredible talent away. Though he appeared to be looking lazily at the holoscreens and examining the long list of liver-desecrating beverages, he is here for one reason and one reason only. To carry an old friend kicking and screaming out of misery.
Across the room, Alex began to sink into the comfortable chanlon plating of the Nar Shadaa bar. It was cold, yet refreshing. But for a woman who could hardly feel much of anything anymore, the chill was a peasant breeze. Yes. Perhaps going home tonight would be the real mistake. Perhaps this time her liver will finally give out before the hospital could stop it. Perhaps this is the best time to throw in the towel, for everything, Alex thought as darkness took her. Darkness gave way to a dream.
Alexieux jerked slightly as she awoke from the drunken nap. Her comfortable position on the bar had been disrupted by the arrival of an armored man.
'No, please, don't tell me Torian found another of his so called leads!' Alex pleaded to anything that would listen to her thoughts. With a measure of anxiety, Alexieux snuck a glance at the new arrival. But her hair and rags obscured all view.
"'Su Coygar'… Did I say it right?" the figure broke the silence and her worries. She knew that voice anywhere, no one could butcher Mando'a quite like him. He always seemed to mess up with the apostrophes. And the intonation. And the pronunciation. Still, Alex was too dead set on self-hate this day to gain any cheer.
"No…..How the hell did you find me?" the depressed woman groveled.
"You aren't especially hard to locate, you certainly weren't using any of the skill your father taught you." Alex cringed at the mention of the man. The Aging mercenary noticed her discomfort, apparently still a sore subject. Alex relaxed and responded.
"Fine, well what is it that you want?"
"You"
"Me?" Alex raised the brow of her remaining eye, vaguely interested for a moment before her intoxicated state removed the curiosity
"More specifically, I want your skills" the Friend crossed his arms
"Nah, I'm out of that business"
"On to other ventures, then? Far more profitable than this nasty bounty hunting deal, I take it"
"Here I hoped this wouldn't end in you patronizing me"
"I'm not, I'm here to get you out of this sorry state"
"Who's to say I want out, perhaps I like it here"
"I say you want out, Alex. A Lifestyle spent in equal measures of vices and tears is not one worth living. Not for a Mandolorian." The Mercenary's remark set a rage into motion. Pressing with speed surprising for a woman so intoxicated, Alexieux Surik flipped her supposed friend over her shoulder and onto the bar of the Cantina. Pulling a well-used Imperial made Vibroknife from her shoulder, she held the gently humming weapon to the man's throat.
"What would you know about my wants? What could you possibly know! Have you ever lost what I have?!" she screamed, "gar Ru'lis draar kar'taylir meg ner aarayse cuyir!"She yelled once more, sliding into Mando'a. Her green eye dared her friend to stay quiet, but the entire room grew silent as well. The band had stopped playing, as everyone in the Cantina found their gaze drawn to the woman. She looked poised to kill.
Her Friend lay down calmly on the bar, raising his hands vaguely in surrender before speaking
"No. I can only imagine the pain you have been through," he began, "What happened to-" Alex cut him off with a pained glare. The aged mercenary paused for a moment, carefully considering what to say next. "I-It was unthinkable, and if I ever found the Slug responsible I would deliver them to you then hand you a charged blaster. You know that. But... sitting in this bar won't bring them back. It's been 6 years. Drinking yourself to death doesn't help anyone "
Alexieux pressed the knife firmly against the older man's neck.
"What else am I to do?" Alex spoke softly, in a whisper. Her remaining eye looked down in sorrow
"Move on" Her friend paused momentarily as the green eye darted back to him. "Not forget, just continue with your life, and move to the next stage"
Alexieux Surik glared at the older man, seriously considering killing him right there. Yes, she had wasted the last 6 years of her life gambling, drinking, and spice-ing...only working to obtain credits to continue to drown he sorrow. A change certainly was warranted.
"Haar'chak.." she muttered in frustration and jabbed the Vibroknife into the bar, glancing the older man's ear.
"Ok, I'm listening... what is it that you want me for?" she sat down on her barstool. The man dusted himself off and sat down in the chair next to his friend.
"First I need you in fresh shape, I know you will want to remember this tomorrow"
"wha-" the former-Mandolorian began, only to be cutoff by her Friend jabbing a bacta injector into her neck. She could tell it was bacta, as the red liquid that was bacta lacked the soothing, analgesic effects of Kolto. Why anyone would consider using it instead was beyond her. She yelped slightly, causing the old man to smile. Alex burned a solitary hole in his head as she looked crossly to him, only to relax as the fluid began removing the alcohol from her system. While Kolto may be better for feeling, Alex would be dammed if she didn't agree bacta yielded results. Kolto alone wouldn't have been enough to completely render her sober, it would have only been able to consume the alcohol in the blood stream, anything with in her cells and brain would have to come out the old fashioned way. The bacta was taking everything. She shook her head several times as the effects began to flood her. Grabbing her neck in annoyance, Alex finished her thoughts
"Dammit, Braden, do you know what they are saying that that stuff will do to ya? There is a reason why kolto is the still preferred miracle treatment you know!
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, stop whining" Braden Sarice chided. Still rubbing her neck, Alex asked the original query.
"Okay, old man, what is it this time? Have you finally brought me hope for a better tomorrow?"
"Perhaps. What do you know about the Great Hunt?"
19 Years Before the Treaty of Coruscant
The Operative without Identity
"ad'ika," The agent known as Cipher Twelve called softly in Mando'a. He had carried many names in his life, but they were all covers. He never had a birth name, or a favored alias, or a name he internalized to himself. He had lived his life in service to the Empire, an Imperial Operative that had been key to destabilizing the Republic before the war. But that was an old life. Though he was technically still in service to Intelligence, Cipher Twelve had left his life behind and settled on Concord Dawn with his Mando'ade friends. Though 2 others knew that he was once Cipher Twelve, he was known to everyone else as Felician, an esteemed and talented member of clan Itera. He had moved on, married, had started a family. He had a daughter, a mischievous but brilliant girl, who at the moment was the center of his attention.
Though the 11 year old girl was standing directly in front of her Father, she dared not look in his eyes. Her left arm was bleeding slightly, the result of a piece of rudimentary armor she had been wearing when out hunting with Mother. The gauntlet had protected her forearm from the jaws of an attacking Skarkla, but it was a coarse, salvaged fabrication. Though functional, her self-made gauntlet was not without flaws. Often times, the gauntlet would dig in to her flexors, the muscles of her forearms. During target practice, each pull of the trigger would elicit a slight grimace as the cold metal dug into her flesh. It was useful for its purpose, and to the young girl, that was all that mattered. Even so, that imperfection was the cause of her current pain. Imbedded into her arm was a sliver of bronzium, the same piece that had for so long been nothing but a nuisance.
"ad'ika, haa'taylir sha ni", the Cipher Agent spoke, slightly wavering his voice in worry. His daughter continued to look down, up, away: anywhere but at him. Though she was in pain from the wound, it was clear that she felt more discomfort from her father's lectures.
"Child, why do we wear armour"? He asked, this time taking a different approach by asking in Basic. Though he had left his life behind more than a decade ago, his voice still carried an imperial inflection. At hearing his voice in Basic, Cipher Twelve's daughter focused her attention. She wore a slightly confused expression, as her father rarely spoke Basic in private settings.
"Sorry?"
"You heard me"
"Yes, but-"
"Why do we wear armour" he calmly interrupted.
"Mother told me we wear it to survive. She also said we wear it to all look mandolorian, no matter how different we otherwise look from our brothers and sisters."'
"Precisely, and part of surviving is functionality. Whatever you put in your armour needs to work together with the other pieces. Our armour is supposed to be our second skin."
"What did I do?" she asked defensively.
"It isn't what you did, child, but what you failed to do" Twelve gingerly took his daughter's arm to examine the wound. It had stopped bleeding, though some of blood had seeped through the rough bandage she had applied on her way home. With measured precision, the man removed the bandage. As it came off, several fibers remained adhered to the bronzium shrapnel, pulling ever so slightly. His Daughter stifled a cry as he unhitched the fibers, more slowly than before. With the bandage gone, the wound began to bleed once more. A small trickle curved down the young Mandolorian's arm while her father rummaged around his bag. As Twelve searched for medical supplies, a solitary drop of blood fell from his daughter's arm.
It cascaded on the floor, a crimson colored blemish contrasting with the matte backdrop.
"Why aren't you getting kolto?" the girl asked when her father produced a small kit. It was a needle and thread bound together in an airtight package. While she had no problem with needles, it still confused her to see them when she had learned from experience that kolto would achieve the same goal faster.
"To ensure you remember what I say...What you failed to do was make your bracer fully functional. Yes, it succeeded in protecting your arm from the attack of a wild animal, but it failed in that it did damage to you in the process. Do you follow?"
"Yes, father...liser vi Gedet'ye yaimpar at mando'a?" The girl asked. She was uncomfortable speaking Basic, especially when around her father. His pronunciation always seemed to be so planned, so precise, that when she compared her own inflection, a neutral tone with hints of a mandolorian accent, she felt pressured and uncomfortable. Her father, however, ignored her request.
"If your equipment fails in such a way while you are in the field, what then? This is really important, ad'ika. If you are in a real battle for your life and your chest plate takes a hit from a blaster, would you rather it ablate harmlessly to protect you? Or absorb the heat...and scald you?" As Felician said the last words, he pulled the brozium shrapnel from his daughter's forearm. Thought she had known the metal would have to be removed, the sharpness of the pain still startled the young Mandolorian, and this time she failed to stifle her cry.
A tear fell to join the crimson star.
The Cipher Agent placed a clean cloth onto the wound and applied pressure, miraculously preventing any more blood from falling to the floor. His daughter squirmed under the firmness of his grip. Eventually she grew still, and when her father pulled the needle through her skin to sew up the wound, she stared at him with eyes of green. She had experienced what pain was necessary the lesson, anything else she felt was simply an echo for memory. When Cipher Twelve finished, he looked at his daughter with his own emerald vision.
"Alexieux," he began, garnering the undivided attention of his daughter at the mention of her name, "I love you. It hurts to see you in pain for this mistake, but it would be nothing short of torture to see you never learn from this mistake. That is why I haven't used kolto. You would have forgotten this among hundreds of other moments of me patching you up had I used that. I want you to remember this, remember to never settle for 'close enough' when it comes to armour. As a Mandolorian, your Beskar'gam is precisely that, your Iron Skin. It is a part of you, and must be kept in a superior condition."
Cipher Twelve paused for a moment, allowing his daughter to comprehend everything. In spite of his nature as a Cipher Agent, Twelve truly loved his daughter. It pained him to know the nature in which he lives as a Mandolorian was a lie, that at any time, Imperial Intelligence might activate him and require that he carry out a mission only achievable by his cover. Even his friends who knew of his past with Intelligence were unaware of this mission. The man who would be Felician Surik dreaded that day, as it would solidify the fact that he had been pretending all this time. But for all he knew, that day could be years from now.
He could be satisfied with pretending until then.
Author's Note: Edit from inital upload, decided to organize into one chapter instead of the initial two chapter upload. Please review, if requests are made, I will provide translations of the Mando'a . Next upload should introduce the Assassin without Rage.